Fioriglio: Umpire mistakes should be exception, not rule

Umpiring a baseball game at any level is no easy task. The difference between a ball and a strike is often an inch or two and close plays on the basepaths can be decided by seconds. Knowing that, it is certainly reasonable to expect that even the very best umpires on the planet occasionally make the wrong call. Over the past few seasons, though, it seems that occasionally has turned into something more common, at least at the major league level. And that point was brought to the forefront once again in the past week.

On Tuesday night, Toronto Blue Jays utility infielder Munenori Kawasaki squared around to bunt. After seeing that the pitch was going to be a ball, he pulled the bat back and the ball struck his foot. Instead of being awarded first base for being struck by the pitch, however, home plate umpire Alan Porter claimed that the pitch hit his bat and was a foul ball. Porter then proceeded to eject Toronto manager John Gibbons, who told MLB.com that he simply asked Porter to ask the other umpires who may have had a better vantage point for assistance.

On Friday night, much closer to home, home plate umpire Angel Hernandez had a terribly inconsistent strike zone when the Phillies took on the Atlanta Braves and ejected Braves catcher Gerald Laird and manager Fredi Gonzalez for having the audacity to question his calls. Later in the game, Hernandez rung up Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman on a borderline pitch and proceeded to follow Freeman down the first baseline in between innings to further chastise the Braves infielder who had, at this point, gone to first to warm up with the other infielders.

Even worse, this was not the first time that Hernandez was involved in controversy this season. About two months ago, he ruled a ball that was hit by Oakland Athletics infielder Adam Rosales in the ninth inning of a one-run game as a double despite replay evidence to the contrary that, amazingly, was actually shown to him during game. Due in large part to that blown call, Oakland lost the game 4-3.

This week’s sampling of blown calls are just drops in the bucket, though. There’s the infamous blown call by Jim Joyce at first base during Armando Galarraga’s would-be perfect game in 2010 or that time last season when Tim Welke called Jerry Hairston out at first despite the fact that Todd Helton’s foot was clearly about three feet off the base, or the time that Jerry Meals contributed greatly to the second-half collapse of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2011 by calling Braves runner Julio Lugo safe at home plate in the bottom of the 19th inning even though Lugo was tagged several feet in front of the plate and never touched the plate.

To err is human and even the very best umpires make mistakes sometimes. Joyce, to his credit, answered questions from the press following his blown call, admitting that after he saw a replay, he had definitely made a mistake. At one point, he even broke down because he felt so bad. In fact, it seemed that he probably took the mistake harder than Galarraga did. Major League Baseball also issued a statement acknowledging that mistakes had been made, as it did with the calls by Meals and Welke.

Unfortunately for the health of the league, this is the exception and not the rule.

Hernandez, who already has two controversies to his name this year, has routinely been ranked at or near the bottom of numerous “Sports Illustrated” player polls, alongside such “luminaries” as “Cowboy” Joe West, who fancies himself a country singer, and C.B. Bucknor.

However, for the routinely terrible calls made by guys like Hernandez, West, and Bucknor, and their unprofessional habit of antagonizing players and coaches, MLB does nothing, especially not disciplining the frequent offenders. After all, after 20-plus years on the job, those guys may yet have to figure out how to act professionally and call a good game.

Making the situation even more frustrating is the fact that technology is currently available to monitor strike zones, to view close plays over and over again, and to profile which umpires are good at their jobs and which are not.

Unfortunately, the league seems resistant to institute any of that technology at the moment to maintain the so-called “human element” of the game even though there was resounding success when Ques Tec measurement systems were installed at stadiums across the country to monitor the strike zones of umpires nearly a decade ago and since that time, the vast majority of umps have gotten more consistent and more accurate.

Additionally, other leagues, most notably the NHL, have replay policies in place that don’t slow down the game and are located off the field, only coming into play when a mistake has been made.

It is probably a safe assumption to say that few baseball fans want to see technology replace humans when calling a game. However, it is probably even safer to say that even fewer fans want to see mistakes routinely get made. Nobody spends their hard-earned money to see “Cowboy” Joe West or Angel Hernandez make mistake after mistake while upstaging the players in the process.